Amy teaches 8th grade English Language Arts at Northwood where she focuses on empowering both students and families. Amy says her own experience as the parent of two students who didn’t fit the traditional mold had made a tremendous impact on how she approaches working with an increasingly wide variety of learning styles.

Amy believes family and community engagement is critical to student success. She suggests schools build in opportunities to teach parents how to participate in school. She creates meaningful and long-term service projects and encourages students to explore what their community means to them through reflective writing.

Amy is passionate about Common Core State Standards and the opportunity for equity they represent. She is committed to helping bring these academic standards to life through interactive lessons. She advocates for more specific modeling and better collaboration from elementary to middle to high school to ease transitions from one set of standards to the next.

Principal Colleen Nelson praises Amy saying,

“Amy exemplifies all that is great about public schools and quality teachers. She is a believer and a doer. Amy comes to work every day and is guided by her strong beliefs about the power of education and her compelling drive to serve others.”

Read more about the 2014 Teacher of the Year recipients a the OSPI Website.

“Jennifer Bradbury is the author of A Moment Comes, Wrapped, and her debut novel, Shift. Shift—which Kirkus Reviews gave a starred review, calling it “fresh, absorbing, compelling”—was picked as an ALA and a School Library Journal Best Book for Young Adults and is also on numerous state reading lists. A former English teacher and one-day Jeopardy! champ, she lives with her family in Burlington, Washington.”

Kim Norton and poets from Lopez Island publish an anthology of poems, “How to Save the World”.

While there has been a “Poets Only” writing group on Lopez Island since 2003, the idea for a chapbook emerged out of a meeting of seven poets in the summer of 2013. When Linda Barton shared her poem, “If only...,” she remarked it was “not a poem to save the world.” This single comment led to a discussion of how the simple act of making bread pudding late in the night could take one to a deeper recognition of connection, communication and asking for what one needs. Then to how any poem could be seen as a way to save the world. The seed planted, the group decided to collaborate on a chapbook, with three poems from each poet, modestly titled “How to Save the World.” -- Lorna Reese, The Islands’ Weekly, April 24, 2014, photo contributed.

In-Service Programs

If you'd like to discuss PSWP with your school administrator, you'll find talking points here and examples of in-service programs that can be tailored for your school.